Radio România Internațional

Tag: local administration

  • The date of Romania’s upcoming presidential election has sparked off heated debates inside the ruling coalition

    The date of Romania’s upcoming presidential election has sparked off heated debates inside the ruling coalition

    2024 is “an all-out election year” in Romania. With the elections for the local administration and for the European Parliament already consumed on June 9th, the ruling coalition in Romania convened last week for talks over the upcoming ballot, the presidential one, which sparked off heated debates inside the ruling coalition.

    The Liberals would like to push this election round towards the end of the year, to November or December, whereas the Social-Democrats are lobbying for the month of September, a date already agreed upon within the coalition, although informally.

    The Liberals argue that the September election and the holiday season in Romania would overlap and the voting may disturb the beginning of a new school year. So, talks over the election schedule continued into this week as well. The talks on Tuesday between the two ruling formations, the PSD and PNL, went on for three hours to eventually end in a deadlock. The Social Democrats are adamant that the first round of elections be held over September the 15th and 29th whereas the Liberals want to have them on November 10th or 24th.

    The PNL argues that the outcome of the previous election has reshaped the landscape for the upcoming presidential race, whereas the Social Democrats are insisting on implementing a decision that was assumed first.

    PSD has even called on the Liberal Interior Minister, Cătălin Predoiu, to decide over the date in September and forward it to the government for endorsement most likely on their next session on Friday. Here is the PSD spokesman Lucian Romascanu.

    Lucian Romaşcanu: ʺI believe that Minister Predoiu together with the National Liberal Party will do what they promised to do and we are going to have elections in September. And if they can block this, let’s see if they are going to do it. “

    In turn, the PNL’s deputy vice-president, Rareş Bogdan, says that the agreement they had in March is no longer valid and that the presidential election must take place in November.

    Rares Bogdan: ʺThe two parties, which convened in Poiana Brasov and in  Sâmbăta de Sus, have decided that each party have their own candidate for the presidential race. So, practically, the agreement in March was terminated as each party want to back their own candidate in the presidential election. So, from our viewpoint, the first proposal is becoming obsolete and we strongly believed these elections must be staged in the Constitutional term, in the month of November.”  

    Whether the presidential elections are taking place in September, November or December, let’s not forget that by the end of the present year, Romania will have to stage another round of election, for its Parliament seats.

    (bill)

  • June 7, 2024 UPDATE

    June 7, 2024 UPDATE

    EU Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova have met the conditions for starting EU accession negotiations. A spokeswoman for the European Commission said in Brussels on Friday that the decision now is in the hands of the member countries. The Commission has informed the Council that Ukraine has done the latest legislative amendments in its legal system, to regulate lobbying activities and in the fields of minorities and the Republic of Moldova has operated changes in its judiciary. In the case of both countries, the Commission will be monitoring the implementation of the new amendments, but the steps taken so far allow for kicking off accession negotiations. In a first stage, the member states are expected to endorse the Commission recommendation and there is one question mark concerning the position of Hungary. A second stage will be the setting up of an inter-governmental conference with Moldova and Ukraine a moment which coincides with the start of negotiations for bringing the entire legislation in line with the bloc’s laws. The council’s presidency is presently being held by Belgium, a country, which wants the setting up of the first inter-government conference during its mandate, by the end of July.

     

    GROWTH The Gross Domestic Product of the eurozone and of the EU registered an increase of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2024 as compared to the last quarter of 2023, says data published on Friday by the EU statistical office Eurostat. According to the same data, Romania’s economy registered a slight growth above the European average with a GDP growth of 0.4% in the year’s first three months after a contraction of 0.6% in the last three months of 2023. Eurostat data are similar to those provided by the National Institute for Statistics, which revised down Romania’s economic growth in the first quarter from a previous forecast of 0.5% to 0.4%.

     

    ELECTION In Romania, Friday was the last day of the first electoral campaign in 2024. Citizens with the right to vote are expected, on Sunday, to go to the polls to choose both their representatives in the future European Parliament and in the local authorities. According to the data of the Permanent Electoral Authority, over 200,000 candidates have tried, starting from May 10, to convince voters to vote them. The oldest candidate is 100 years old, and the youngest is just over 23 years old. 11,386 people are running for mayoral positions. All in all, 207,389 candidates have registered for all the positions of local, county and municipal councilors, mayors and presidents of county councils. For the European Parliament elections, 12 political parties and electoral alliances and four independent candidates have registered, i.e. a total of 494 candidates, of whom the Romanians with the right to vote must choose 33 that will represent Romania in the European Parliament. The electoral campaign will end on Saturday morning, at 7:00 a.m.

     

    WAGES Almost 1,900,000 employees in Romania will receive increased salaries by 284 lei (57 Euros) net value, from July 1, after the Romanian Government approved the increase of the gross minimum wage from 3,300 lei (about 660 Euros) to 3,700 lei (approximately 740 Euros) and raised from 200 lei (approximately 40 Euros) to 300 lei (almost 60 Euros) the monthly amount exempted from the payment of the income tax. The executive believes that this approach will have positive effects on economic growth, the purchasing power of employees and will contribute to the reduction of undeclared work. However, the decision does not apply to employees in agriculture and the food industry, as legal provisions in force apply to these categories. The government representatives said that this increase is a step towards the adoption, from November, of the minimum wage at the European level.

    (bill)

  • May 30, 2024

    May 30, 2024

    GOVERNMENT – The Romanian Government is today voting an emergency decree to adopt the national program on the digitization of local authorities. The program stipulates specific actions for each local administration, including planning and implementing digital platforms, e-governance services, apps and investments in computer infrastructure and related equipment. The Government says these actions will boost the online availability of digital public services, helping Romania attain 100% online availability of digital services, a digital goal. The Government will also vote an emergency decree on modifying and amending legislation on expropriations caused by public utility. The modifications are required to implement certain objectives of national, county and local interest.

     

     

    INVESTIGATION – Romanian authorities have arrested 13 people suspected of fraud and issuing forged prescriptions for diabetes. One medical nurse, eight drugstore workers and four physicians are targeted by an investigation into the issuance of subsidized drugs, in particular Ozempic, a drug used in the treatment of diabetes, which also causes weight loss. The illegally issued prescriptions were picked up by the suspects’ relatives from 140 pharmacies in Bucharest and Ilfov County. Although they did not have the right to issue them, gynecologists, cardiologists and family physicians issued the prescriptions from private clinics, and the drugs were sold via online platforms to clients all over the country. The prejudice exceeds 200 thousand EUR.

     

     

    PROTEST – Members of the National Federation of Administrative Trade Unions on Thursday protested the Government’s discriminatory salary policies and its refusal to pass fair and proportionate measures with a view to doing away with salary inequities. The trade federation represents employees of local and central authorities. Unionists have recently criticized the draft decree stipulating a 10% salary increase for certain categories of public workers, accusing the government of encouraging salary disparities between similar institutions and of disregarding the actual needs of public sector employees.

     

     

    UNEMPLOYMENT – The unemployment rate went up to 5.3% in April, a 0.1% increase compared to March, the National Statistics Institute reports. Youth unemployment stood at 20.5% for the 15-24 age bracket, although it reported a drop compared to March. Unemployment among the male population is 0.6% higher than the rate among women.

     

     

    MOLDOVA – On the sidelines of his visit to Chișinău, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a 50-mln-USD assistance package designed to help Moldovan authorities bolster  democratic institutions in the face of Moscow’s threats. Another 85 mln USD will be invested to help curb Moldova’s energy dependency on Russia, the US official added. During a press briefing held jointly with the president of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, Secretary Blinken condemned Moscow’s ingressions into democratic processes in Moldova and its war of aggression against Ukraine. In turn, president Sandu hailed Blinken’s visit, describing it as evidence of the excellent relations between the two countries and a signal of support for peace and democracy.

     

     

    TENNIS – Irina Begu and Ana Bogdan are the only Romanian tennis players still competing in the women’s singles at Roland Garros. In today’s second round, Begu is playing Linda Nosková of Czechia, whereas Bogdan will take on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia.  Bogdan and Begu are also competing in the women’s doubles, alongside other representatives of Romania. (VP)

  • Will local officials be exonerated from responsibility?

    Will local officials be exonerated from responsibility?

    In recent years, against the backdrop of the fight against corruption, many high-ranking officials in the Romanian administration have been removed. From top players in the central administration, MPs, ministers and even an ex-prime minister to local officials, such as presidents of county councils or mayors of small communes, a lot of people have fallen victim, politically speaking, to the fight against corruption. That is why, there is no easy way for politicians to cover their backs without being noticed. The Senate has passed a draft bill amending the local administration law providing for local officials to have exclusive responsibility for the documents they issue, without the legal endorsement of the public institution’s secretary and without the signatures of civil servants with prerogatives in the field. As the senator of the Social-Democratic Party, the main ruling party, Ioan Denes, argues, the mayor’s signature reflects only the mayor’s authority, not expertise. Ioan Denes, secretary of the Senate Administration Committee:



    “This proposal and the amendments have made it clear for everybody, including those interpreting the laws, that the mayor’s signature is a signature authenticating the document he or she issued, and not an expert opinion regarding town-planning or other areas related to an administrative document issued by the local public administration.”



    The MPs of the Save Romania Union, USR, the second opposition faction in this country, voted against the draft law, warning that through that law, mayors might be exonerated from the responsibility of signing an administrative document. Florina Presada, a USR senator:



    “Though we believe that every civil servant should be responsible for the documents he or she signs, we also believe that the mayor should share that responsibility. This initiative is dangerous because mayors may be exonerated from the responsibility of countersigning or signing administrative documents. We demand that the errors made by the Committee be removed and we will call on Parliament, on our fellow senators to turn down the draft law.”



    The draft law was tacitly passed by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate is the decision-making body in this case. As pundits note, the initiative fuels suspicions that being exonerated from the responsibility for his or her own signature, a mayor, whoever he or she might be, can very easily conceal his or her incompetence or intention to embezzle public money, the latter being a practice that has often been confirmed in court. (Translated by A.M. Palcu)